Ants Can Sniff Out Friend from Foe with Amazing Sense of Smell

It turns out that ants can sniff out body odor to tell friend from foe. Scientists have discovered that these insects manage recognition based on chemical pheromones, which they sense with their antennae.

In order to learn a bit more about how social ants identify friend from foe, the researchers used a powerful electrophysiological method, which allowed them to systematically test the response of the individual neurons in the ant antennae to hydrocarbons found in the cuticles of worker ants and their queens. Their method allowed them to determine exactly which chemicals triggered a response in the ants' sensory system, a level of detail that had never been achieved before.

"To our surprise, these very low volatility compounds are not only detected sensitively by specialized antennal sensors, but almost all of the hydrocarbon components are detected," said Anandasankar Ray, one of the researchers, in a news release. "Using this amazing high-definition ability to smell 'ant body odor,' the ants can recognize various castes in the colony as well as intruders from another colony."

The ants have a high sensitivity to pheromones that allows them to detect very few molecules of hydrocarbons that stick close to the cuticle surface. This allows the ants to detect other ants that are very close to them within the crowded colony.

The findings reveal a bit more about how these ants manage to communicate and recognize others within colonies. As the researchers close in on the functional roles of the ants' odorant receptors, they hope to find those that detect pheromones from the ant queen that are responsible for keeping the colony in order.

The findings are published in the journal Cell Reports.

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